Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio

It was brought against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio by people of Hispanic ancestry with real-life stories to tell.

By Americans from Chicago. By Mexican citizens with a perfectly legitimate right to be in the United States. By people of a darker hue who suffered the indignity of seeing lighter-hued people in the same car treated far, far more kindly by Arpaio's deputies.

All of those plaintiffs, according to U.S. District Judge Murray Snow, told the same story with clarity: They were targeted in the course of sweeps by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office solely because they were Latino.

Snow ruled May 24, nearly eight months after the seven-day trial, that Arpaio's department had engaged in forbidden racial profiling.

The case parallels the still-pending federal case against Arpaio brought by the Justice Department's Office of Civil Rights. But while that case - led by President Obama's nominee to head the U.S. Department of Labor, Thomas Perez - appears to rest heavily on expert testimony and statistical analysis, this case stands on evidence closer to the ground.

That evidence included Sheriff Arpaio's own words.

In addition to weighing the strong, personal stories related by the plaintiffs, Judge Snow also considered Arpaio's often intemperate observations about his rationale for conducting so-called "crime sweeps" in neighborhoods that just happened to be largely Hispanic.

Hubris and ego have long been hallmarks of America's Toughest Sheriff. His snarky, smirking, contempt-laden denials that his sweeps profiled Hispanics always pushed the margins of believability. Now, a federal judge has called him on it.

The ruling will be appealed. That was guaranteed, regardless of which way the judge ruled. But Snow's order that the Sheriff's Office halt its practice of using Hispanic ancestry as a reason for stopping drivers is only the beginning. In addition to the Justice Department case, Snow indicated that still more remedies may follow his injunction against Arpaio's practices.

The motivation behind Arpaio's obnoxious sweeps can be traced to a specific incident in 2005, which constituted a political epiphany for the image-conscious sheriff. He saw the public reaction - outrage - when a young veteran was arrested for holding a group of suspected illegal aliens at gunpoint.

From that moment forward, he saw political gold in transforming himself into America's Toughest Immigration Warrior.

Judge Snow's decision is evidence that Arpaio's gold fantasy is finally turning back into lead.